Bakery owner’s ‘tears of joy’ as hundreds queue for rainbow Pride cookies after anti-gay backlash
"We're astonished at your generosity of heart - the line is wrapped around the street since we opened."
Words: Jamie Tabberer; picture: Facebook/Confections
A bakery in Lufkin, Texas has been “overwhelmed” with customers after initially losing followers over its new rainbow Pride cookies.
The bakery, named Confections and run by sisters Dawn and Miranda, revealed their new range last week.
They’ve since shared photos of block-long queues and empty shelves as the range went viral – despite initially receiving backlash from homophobes.
“A very small business that is struggling to stay afloat”
“Today has been hard,” a rep said in a post on 3 June 2021. “Really hard. We lost a significant amount of followers because of a rainbow heart cookie we posted.
“We received a very hateful message on our business page canceling a large order (5dz) of summer themed cookies for tomorrow morning (that we just finished decorating) because of a rainbow heart cookie we posted [sic].
“My heart is heavy. Honestly I never thought a post that literally said more love less hate would result in this kind of backlash to a very small business that is struggling to stay afloat and spread a little cheer through baked goods.
“So. If you love our cookies we will have an over abundance of them tomorrow. Hopefully tomorrow will be better.”
“We are humbled and grateful and proud to serve our community”
As news of the backlash spread on social media, Confections began posting about its turning fortunes.
“We are overwhelmed by all the sweet words of support posted, messaged and emailed,” they said. “There are so many it may take us a while to get through them all. Tears of joy ran down my face as I read through them. Thank you so much to all our new followers, 2,500 of y’all!!
“We will open today at 10 and will have the canceled order individually bagged and tied and ready to sell, $3 each.
“To all of those who donated to some of our favorite animal rescues from our last post, thank you! We have felt the love.
“For all those asking, you can find us on Instagram under sugarcookieart.
“I’m posting a picture of our lunch menu in the comments because we’ve had so many requests. Again we are humbled and grateful and proud to serve our community.”
They later added: “We are astonished at your generosity of heart. The line is wrapped around the street since we opened. We will be CLOSING TODAY one hour early at 4:00 to rebake and regroup for tomorrow as we are close to being sold out. We will be OPEN SATURDAY 11-2 with more of everything, including the rainbow heart that started it all.”
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The bakery’s Facebook page now has over 20k Instagram followers and counting.
In an Instagram post, a Confections rep revealed RuPaul’s Drag Race star Alyssa Edwards had DM’d the bakery to enquire about deliveries.
“Howdy!” the Texas native said. “Do you guys offer any shipping availability? Thank you.”
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